Vertigo

by Wesley Cross

  “Whatever,” she said angrily. “Let’s get this over with.”

  The man opened one of the office doors with a keycard and disappeared inside. After a few seconds, the metal door in front of her rolled up, opening up a dark, cavernous space. Chen stepped in, and the gate slowly rolled back down, leaving her in pitch black.

  Her heart started to race and her adrenaline spiked up again. This was the end of her relationship with Vic, she realized. There was no way to go back to normality after this. Whatever explanation there was for her ride in the limo and the secrecy, there couldn’t be anything good about it.

  Vic must’ve employed illegal aliens, she reflected, hence the machinery hum somewhere inside of the building. Probably even participated in smuggling them into the country. That would explain his frequent trips to Hong Kong and mainland China. Her mind raced. She’d always felt he stayed there for longer than necessary for a regular business trip, but never bothered to press him on it.

  The lights turned on, blinding her for a moment. When her eyes grew accustomed to the light, she saw a small metal door at the end of the empty space. Uncertain, she took a few steps and pulled on the door. A loud creaking noise startled her, but not as much as the horrible stench that hit her like a punch to the gut. As in a nightmare—terrified, but not able to stop herself—she took a step inside the room and closed the door behind her.

  A naked man was tied to a rough wooden table, his arms and legs spread so hard it made his entire body taut with tension, like a thread on the bow of a cello. As under a spell, Chen made two more steps and stopped next to the table, not able to look away. The man turned his head to her, revealing an empty socket in place of one of his eyes and missing skin on half of his face.

  “Please,” he whispered. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  21

  September 2007

  New York

  Jill Cooper checked her watch for the third time. The guard was supposed to leave more than twenty minutes ago, which should have given her the opportunity to enter the building. Yet the rugged-looking rent-a-cop was still standing in front of the squat four-story structure and showed no signs that he would be departing any time soon.

  It should have been an easy job. The ugly red-brick building with two gated entrances in the front and an attached garage on the side had no internal surveillance and the streets leading to the address were devoid of traffic cameras or any other video equipment. The three guards watched the place in eight-hour shifts, right outside the main entrance, but the one with the graveyard shift always left the place for a few minutes to repark his old Subaru closer to the building.

  She put down the pair of Night Owl Pro infrared binoculars and reclined in her car seat. It didn’t matter if he left now. At some point, sooner or later, he’d have to take a leak, and that was going to be her cue. For now, all she could do was wait.

  It was a puzzling mark. The man Jill Cooper was hired to eliminate wasn’t a hot-shot CEO of a big company, or a star acquisition attorney making big waves in deep corporate waters. He was an owner of a small specialty welding business that operated out of two locations, one in the southern Bronx and one in Long Island. The only anomaly she spotted during her routine research was that the company had a few dozen patents on welding techniques, but Cooper wasn’t able to find anything that would suggest they were of any significant value.

  The man traveled between the two shops most of the days, but every Friday night he stayed in the Bronx location overnight, catching up on some paperwork. There was a small apartment on the top floor of the building and Cooper was certain that’s where she would find her target at this hour.

  A small bright light of a match illuminated the guard’s face as he lit up a cigarette and a moment later, he headed away from the door.

  “Finally,” Cooper said out loud. She slid out of her Toyota Camry and started walking toward the building, staying away from the street lights. By the time she got to the front door, the guard was nowhere to be seen. She glanced around and, not seeing anyone in a two-block radius, Cooper squatted by the lock and took out her tools.

  A simple deadbolt lock gave up in less than a minute, and Cooper stepped into the dimly lit workshop and closed the door behind. The place looked neat and well organized. There was a row of machines by the windows facing the street, a line of red lights silently blinking on top of each one. There was another row of large rectangular desks situated by the inner wall. She started to move toward the stairs when something gleaming on top of the desk in the farthest corner caught her eye.

  Cooper hesitated for a moment. She shouldn’t be wasting any time here on the main floor, exposed if anyone was to walk in. Her job was to get in, take care of business, and walk out before anyone ever knew something was wrong. But there was something unnatural in the way the light reflected off the object on the dimly lit desk.

  Curiosity killed the cat, she thought, crossing the open space as quickly as she could without making any noise.

  The polished wooden surface of the desk was covered by neatly arranged piles of drawings pressed by horseshoe-shaped paperweights. A few sharp HB2 pencils were lined up next to a protractor and an expensive-looking draftsman’s compass. But that’s not what attracted her attention.

  The easiest way to describe the object that was casually left next to a pile of blueprints was to call it a prosthetic arm. But as Cooper looked at it gleaming in the low light as if it were made of liquid mercury, she instantly knew it was no mere artificial limb. It ended at the elbow joint with a cluster of multicolored wires, and there was a cutout at the wrist that exposed some gears inside of the limb that were made from similar but darker metal.

  When Cooper leaned closer to take a look, she could make out thin geometric lines punctuated by tiny square dots under the surface of the metal. It looked like a computer board.

  She examined the arm for a few seconds. The illusion of liquid metal was so strong that she finally gave in to the temptation and touched the surface with the tip of her index finger. The metal was cold and felt hard as a diamond. Somehow, Cooper was sure that if she were to try to scratch it with a knife, the blade would bounce off the strange metal without leaving a mark.

  “Fascinating, isn’t it?”

  Cooper heard a voice behind her and spun on her heels, the heft of the Glock 19 miraculously migrating from the small of her back to her hands.

  The man in his mid-sixties was standing in the front of the room by the stairs. He wore a pair of worn-out jeans, a simple flannel shirt, and a pair of workman boots. His dark face was hard and creased in a way people’s faces get creased when they spend a lot of their life doing some hard, physical work. The man didn’t seem to be afraid of her, or the fact that she was pointing a weapon right at his face.

  “It’s as hard as a diamond but becomes pliable when you run a small electric current through it. You can make it more flexible than a real hand without compromising its integrity.”

  Cooper didn’t answer and moved closer to the man instead. The sights of her gun remained trained on his face the entire time.

  “Is this why you are here? To steal the prototype?”

  “I’m here for you,” she answered and pointed with the barrel of the Glock toward the stairs. “Let’s go back up.”

  “I see.” The man didn’t move an inch, his impression unreadable. “You’re here to kill me. That means your employer miscalculated a great deal.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “You see,” the man continued, ignoring her request, “while our shop does some exceptionally good welding, I don’t think that’s the reason you’re here. There’s no life-or-death competition between welding shops. The only logical conclusion I can draw is that you’re here because of this.” He pointed at the prosthetic with his chin.

  “I’m going to shoot you right here,” Cooper said, getting in the old man’s face, “if you don’t start moving right this second.”

  “It d
oesn’t matter where you shoot me,” he said, unperturbed, “here, upstairs, or anywhere on the street. Unless you know how to create this alloy, and I’m going to go out on a limb here, pun fully intended, and assume that you don’t, you’re screwed.”

  “Move.”

  “You know I’m right,” the man said stubbornly. “Think about it this way—you got lucky because you saw it before you had a chance to kill me. I’d say you’re still a step ahead, but you have to listen to me if you want to stay there.”

  She looked at him for a few seconds, weighing her options. What he was saying made sense. It had to be the damned prosthetic, she thought. There couldn’t be any other reason why she was here. But if he was telling the truth, killing him was the opposite of what her employer would have wanted.

  If he were her first target provided by her new boss, this conversation would have been long over, and she’d be at least a couple of miles away from his cooling body. But having worked for the same employer on a few jobs now, she pieced together at least in broad strokes that their agenda was domination and acquisition of their rivals, not annihilation and total wipeout.

  She had to make a decision and quick before the night guard found a perfect parking spot and returned to his post. Cooper looked at the man standing in front of her and holstered the gun.

  “I’m going to offer it to you only once,” she finally said. “If you want to live, you’re going to have to come with me.”

  22

  September 2007

  Camp Unit, California

  Andrew Hunt looked through the one-way glass. The man he was about to interview was sitting in an empty room behind a desk. The place looked like an interrogation room from a cop drama—a square, empty space with a sturdy, cheap-looking aluminum desk, and two chairs. The only things missing to complete the set were a bright lamp to shine into the suspect’s face and a built-in hook for a pair of handcuffs.

  The guy didn’t look anything special, Hunt decided. He seemed to be in his late thirties, or early forties. Fit, but more in a wiry rather than in-your-face bodybuilding kind of way. He was on the short side too, five eight at most, with a balding head and a plain, pockmarked face.

  “Every time I see guys like that, I feel cheated by Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan,” Hunt said. “I still haven’t met a spy-looking spy.”

  “If they looked like James Bond, it would defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?” Rovinsky said. “You want someone who blends in, not someone who stands out.”

  “So, you’re saying he’s one of the best.”

  “No,” Rovinsky disagreed, “that’s not what I said at all. I said he was the best. He’s been in all the hot zones that we cared to admit we were in, and pretty much every place where we were not supposed to be but were there anyway. We need this guy. Don’t think for a moment that you’re interviewing him. He’ll be interviewing you, my friend.”

  “No pressure then.”

  “None at all.” Rovinsky patted him on the shoulder. “Go get him, tiger.”

  When Hunt entered the room, the man stood up and walked out from behind the desk to shake his hand. His posture was straight, but relaxed, and the movements were graceful and soft like a cat’s.

  “Rick Porter,” the man said. “It’s a pleasure.”

  “Andrew Hunt.”

  Porter’s handshake was firm, but not excessively strong, and there was no discomfort in his calm brown eyes looking up at Hunt’s six-foot-five frame that he was accustomed to seeing in people significantly shorter than him.

  “Rovinsky speaks very highly of you,” he said, taking a seat and gesturing to Porter to do the same. “He went as far as saying that you’d be interviewing me, not the other way around.”

  “Not at all, sir,” Porter said, his expression neutral. “It’s an honor to be considered.”

  “Appreciate you saying that. I’m sure you’ve read the docs, so you’re aware we’ll need at least a couple of dozen operators within the next two years. I’d like to know your thoughts on the selection process, if you don’t mind.”

  “If we want to keep it under wraps and get those numbers, I’d suggest starting with one hundred men,” Porter said without missing a beat. “SEALs have about a ten percent graduation rate, so I’d say we should aim for the same.”

  “Even though a lot of them will be coming from elite units, to begin with?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s never about the physical ability alone. The vast majority of guys who start BUD/S training are also capable of finishing it, but not everybody does. And here you have a different dimension thrown in the mix—you want them to be operators and intelligence officers at the same time. And you’d need them to be able to switch back and forth. Not everybody is capable of being both.”

  “That’s a fair point. What else?”

  “It will be important to do the first group right,” Porter said. “Traditions are valuable. Being the first class is going to give them something to brag about later on, but I wouldn’t want them to feel like guinea pigs during the course.”

  “What would you suggest?”

  “I’d say we keep it secret until graduation,” Porter said. “Tell them it’s class number five or six, so they feel they are a part of the community. We can give those who graduate the bragging rights of being the first, later.”

  “You don’t think they’ll be able to tell?”

  “Not if we play it right.” He paused. “And if somebody does figure it out, they deserve extra points, in my book.”

  “Interesting. What else?”

  “I know the project is going to be on a need-to-know basis, but I’d suggest we make friends with the ISCD. Not necessarily tell them everything about who we are and what we do, but some kind of relationship with them wouldn’t hurt.”

  “ISCD? I’ve never heard of them,” Hunt said.

  “International Serious Crimes Directorate. They’re loosely associated with Interpol, with headquarters in Paris. They are in a similar business—investigation of political crimes. Coups, kidnappings of government officials, corruption, political assassinations and so on.”

  “That sounds right up our alley.”

  “They don’t have a whole lot of resources for the actual ops, so they do more of intelligence gathering and research than anything else. They punt the action to other law enforcement divisions.”

  “You think we could leverage them?”

  “Absolutely. They’re already working with some of the CIA groups and understand the need for compartmentalization.” Porter shrugged. “They’ve been doing it for a long time. They can save us a lot of legwork.”

  “Have you worked with the ISCD yourself?”

  “Yes, on more than one occasion. I was on a mission in Bogota once that would’ve gone south if not for them. It turned out that we had bad intel, but those guys saved the day.”

  “All right. You can reach out to your contacts and establish a link, but I’d like to be in the loop.”

  “Roger that.”

  “One more thing,” Andrew said. “We aren’t in a position to wait for everybody to graduate. We’d need a small team almost right away. Is it going to be a problem for the ongoing class? We’d have to have an explanation for people coming in and out.”

  “That happens on the Farm all the time. Part of the training, actually, to get out and test the skills,” Porter said. “This is not BUD/S. I’d say that wouldn’t be a problem at all. I’ll put together a four-person team for you ASAP.”

  “That would be great,” Hunt said and then paused for a second. “Can I recommend someone? The name’s Michael Connelly. He was instrumental in my wife’s rescue operation in Kenya. Seemed like an outstanding soldier.”

  “Only if he fits,” Porter replied at once. And then added, after a slight pause, “All due respect.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything different.”

  The interview went on for almost two hours, and by the end of it, Andrew Hunt was sure of one thing—Rick P
orter was worth his weight in gold.

  “I think he’s coming on board,” he told Rovinsky when they reunited in what would become a chow hall to snack on cold pizza they’d brought with them.

  “Good,” Rovinsky said, opening the box and putting slices on paper plates. “I never doubted he would. He’s a good guy and he can teach, which is a rare quality.”

  “I have to say,” Hunt said, “I’m still struggling with the why you thought I’d be the right choice to run the organization. Why not someone like Porter? Or yourself? I’ve never even served.”

  “You gotta stop doing that,” Rovinsky said with his mouth full. “Sorry, I’m starving. Tons of people, including station chiefs and agency directors, never served. Nobody gets training before they become presidents, either.”

  “Presidents get elected,” Hunt interjected.

  “They do, sure. But presidents are salespeople first; everything else is secondary. You sell the town, you get to be the mayor. Sell enough folks in the country, and you get to be the president. But these jobs, the way I see it,” he licked tomato sauce off his fingers, “you need to have what they used to call the right stuff back in the day. The straightest of arrows. That is not a trick you can learn, not something you can acquire with enough practice.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I think so.” Rovinsky threw the last piece of pizza in his mouth and got up. “You either have it, or you don’t, and you do. And for what it’s worth—the president thought you did too. Otherwise, we wouldn’t even be here.”

  23

  September 2007

  New York

  The sound of the ringing phone that lay on the stone floor, just outside of the shower glass, brought Chen out of the stupor. She looked around in confusion. She couldn’t remember how she got home or how long she’d been sitting fully clothed on the floor under the warm running water. At least it looked like when she arrived there, she was aware of herself enough to take out her wallet and the phone before she got in the shower.